Just another weekend in Korea

Well there is not a ton to tell about this weekend. For those of you that don't know, I am currently taking my last two classes for my degree. In two weeks, after 12 years of going to school, I will graduate. I cannot wait to hit submit on my final assignment. With that being said, I am working on a 20 page capstone project. It takes up a great deal of my time but it's almost done.

Anyways, I did get the chance to go to Osan this weekend. I went golfing and boy was it ugly. I haven't picked up a set of golf clubs since my back surgery and it showed. Regardless of the fact that I put more golf balls in the water than in the actual hole, I still had a great time. Osan Air Force Base is nice. Real nice. It made it that much more depressing to come back to my little camp. We have exactly nothing here in terms of anything, well, cool. Osan, has a ton. For example, their PX alone is as big as my camp. Maybe a slight exaggeration but not by much. To top it off, as soon as you walk out of the gate there is, well, everything. All the shopping and sights you could possibly want to see. It is really a pretty great place. When I walk out of my gate I get to see rice fields fertilized with human fecal matter. Awesome. The good news is that my unit will actually be moving right down the road from Osan. The bad news, it won't be until about a month before I leave Korea. Oh well, such is life.

The days are beginning to warm up here. It hit 70 this weekend and it felt great. I will definitely be getting out to explore more of Korea very soon. As an added bonus, I will get to do some of the exploring with my amazing wife. In one month from today she will be boarding a plane for the longest effing flight of her life. I will have to give her a few days to get used to the time change, but after that I am going to haul her butt all over Korea. For those of you that do not know my wife, she consists on a diet of tater tots, chik fila, and pizza. Gonna be rough going when it comes to dining options. There are definitely chain restaurants here, but there is no where as many as there are located in the states. Maybe this will bring her out of her food comfort zone. Probably not.

Well, like I said, pretty unproductive, uneventful weekend. Once I am able to go exploring again, I am sure I will have some interesting stories to tell. Until then though my days will be filled with chicken pecking away at my final paper. Until next time...

Really?! WTF were you thinking?!

     That sums up what my mind set was for the weekend. I wish I could say that I had this big adventurous weekend touring Korea. Unfortunately, that was not the case. I spent most of my weekend having to deal with soldier issues. Since that was the topic of my weekend I will make it the topic of my posting.
    
     I haven't really made much mention of what I actually am doing in Korea so I will start there first.
I am now a Platoon Sergeant in charge of about 50 soldiers. I would say at least 80 percent of my platoon consists of soldiers fresh out of intial training. What this means is that many of them are around the age of 18. You realize just how old you feel when you talk to soldiers that, when asked where they were when 9/11 happened, they have no detailed recollection. They say, "I was in second grade and don't really remember it." Really? Seriously? I can remember every last detail of what was happening that day. Just shocking is all.

     As with all "young people" (now that sounds like something an old man would say!) they do stupid crap. Heck I still do stupid stuff but it seems likes the younger you are the more extreme the dumb crap is. The problem is that here in Korea, the liquor sneeks up on you real quick. For those of you who have never experienced soju, let me explain. It is a Korean liquor that is vitually tastless except for a hint of fruitiness. It goes down real smooth and you feel fine when you are sitting down. The problem comes when you go to stand up. Then it hits you like a punch to the face. You go from feeling fine to feeling like, "WTF just happened!" The soldiers go out and start having a good time and drinking the soju and before you know it they are so messed up that they do stupid crap. This is exactly why I spent my weekend running around dealing with the actions of soldiers. I am not complaining about having to deal with soldiers issues, in fact the exact opposite. I really enjoy working with soldiers and helping them grow. There are just those time that you have to stop and look at them and say, "Really?! WTF were you thinking?!"

     Anyways, so as you can see, not everything here is happy exploring and cultural immersion. In fact that is a very small aspect of the everyday life in the Army here in Korea. The operational tempo here is very fast and there is very little time to do much. I look forward to my Saturdays but not every weekend is going to be filled with stories of happy travels. On a more positive note I did attend a hail and farewell on Friday. It basically is a get together with senior leaders that welcomes newcomers and says goodbye to the outgoing personnel. It was the first time I had ever attended one of these and it was actually a really good time. You get to see a more relaxed side of your leadership. I think more organizations should hold events like this.

     I wish that I had a more exciting posting to make, but really that pretty much sums up my weekend. I am hoping that next weekend brings a little more adventures of the positive kind. Until next time...

What do snow, 850 stairs, and 200 naked Korean men have in common?

The answer is: all things I encountered this weekend. I would like to explain the 200 naked Korean men first but that would be going out of order. So let me start from the beginning.

The snow is easy to explain. I woke up Saturday morning early and started my day the best way possible: getting to talk to my wife on Skype. Once we said our goodmornings/goodnights, I threw on stuff and headed out the door to find that it was and had been snowing. The mountain behind the camp was covered in a fresh layer of powder. While this may be great for a day out of snowboarding, it's not so great for a day of walking around and exploring. Oh well, wasn't gonna let a little snow stop me.


I set out to find a disc golf course that I had found online. This was located by the World Cup Stadium that I had previously visited. It turns out that there is a whole lot of stuff to do around that place. I know this because I have my travel guide book to Korea told me so. The Korean travel book also is what led me to my encounter with 200 naked Korean guys, but I will get to that soon enough. Anyways, it turns out that the particular disc golf I was looking for was on the top of what I consider to be a mountain. Needless to say, it was a bit of a haul. On the way up, in addition to snow the wind started blowing. This was no light breeze either. It was blowing hard enough to make is slightly difficult to walk into at times. After walking for 45 minutes I finally reached the top and found the course. At this point the wind was blowing so hard that I couldn't even play. So I turned around and back down the mountain I went.

At the bottom of the mountain I noticed something I hadn't seen on the way up: stairs. Not just a couple stairs but hundreds of stairs that went up the other side of a mountain. I don't know about you, but if I see a set of steps like this the next logical thought that goes through my mind is, "I gotta see whats at the top." So up I went. And up. And up. And up some more. The total count once I reached the top: 425. Between the steps themselves and the wind trying to blow me off the steps, I was beat. The view at the top was worth it though. I got an amazing view of the Han river and the metropolitan Seoul area. As the old saying goes, "What goes up, must come down." Back down the stairs I went. All 425 of them, for a grand total of 850 stairs.

By this time I was freezing and wore out. I headed back to the World Cup Stadium to go into what my travel book said was a hot spring fed public bath house. This is where the 200 naked Korean men come into the story. There is a public area in this place where you can walk around and enjoy some different amenities such as foot massages or just relaxing. When you are in this area you wear what looks like a short sleeved prison jump suit that they give you when you go in. When you go back to the locker room though, that is where the hot spring fed pools are. There is no clothing allowed in this area. So I said screw it, threw off the clothes, and went in to enjoy the spring fed pools. If you truly want to feel out of place somewhere, walk into an area such as this and be the only naked American guy standing there. You would have thought I had an arm growing out of my head. Anyways, I just ignored the looks and hopped into one of the pools. Freakin awesome! Talk about muscle aches just melting away. After I couldn't stand that any more I went into the sauna room. This was not a typical sauna room. This was a modified pizza oven for people. I lasted about 3 minutes in there before I was certain my skin was melting. I went from there into the cold room which was basically a walk in freezer. A little bit of a shock to the system but it felt good after all the heat. Then I repeated the cycle a couple more time. The tour guide book said that doing this will leave a person with a feeling of euphoria. I thought it was B.S. but man I tell you I felt amazing afterwards.

So that pretty much concludes my weekend out. I spent the rest of my next day getting things ready for work and all that boring stuff. I will include some random photos of stuff I saw along the way. So, until next time...

St. Paddys day weekend

Nothing of any real significance happened during the week. More in processing and online training. All very boring so I was looking forward to getting out and about in Korea. Saturday was beautiful. It was one of those days that it wasn't to hot and wasn't too cold and just a slight breeze. I had a goal in mind for Saturday which was to find a place called Nakwon Arcade. Why of all places would I be trying to find an arcade you ask. Well this is no video game arcade, this is Asia's number one place to go to buy an instrument. I read that it was large but I had no idea just how big it was. It was Guitar Center times 30. Three stories of of mostly guitars and drums. It was like if you took the mall of Georgia and packed it wall to wall with instruments only. It was freaking awesome. I played dozens of guitars and got bang the drums for a while. I came to the conclusion the only song people in Korea know how to play on the guitar is House of the Rising Sun. I heard that song played so many times it was ridiculous but they played it very well.
After leaving this little slice of heaven I decided to grab some food. Instead of going into a restaurant I grabbed some street vendor food. Let me say that whatever it was I was eating was amazing. There were these sweet croissant things with a hard boiled egg in the middle; delicious! Then I ate some kind of meat on a stick which I was told was chicken but was in the shape of sausage. Again, didn't care because they were great. I have yet to eat something here that I did not like. If you are not an adventurous eater then this certainly isn't the place for you to visit. Its not that you have to have an adventurous palate, it's more of just a mental thing that you have to overcome. You just have to not worry about what it is that your eating and just enjoy the flavor.
Once I was full I decided to hop on the train and do some more exploring. I went and checked out the World Cup Stadium which was really cool. The park surrounding it was full of people just out enjoying the day with their families. Seeing that definitely made me pretty heavyhearted. It made me miss my family so much that I had to walk away.

That brings me to my evening. I rode the train to Itaewon to check out what was going on there. Lots of shopping to do there if you have some money to spare. I did not so I mostly just browsed. I decided that i was going to have a beer on St. Pattys day and was fortunate enough to find an Irish pub. I started BS'ing with a guy and his girlfriend and it turns out that they were both from Michigan. Better yet they were both fluent in Korean. Really couldn't have found a better set of people to hang out with. They ask me to grab some dinner with them and come hang out a bar that was a favorite of theirs. Absolutely! I knew that I would not make it back in time for curfew so I had to find a hotel that I could stay at that was close by. I told my new friends I didn't want to spend a ton of money on a hotel so they took me to this little tiny place and got me hooked up. I dropped my bag off and was pretty happy about the night thus far. After dinner and some drinks it was time for me to head back to my room. My friends pointed me back to where it was which was straight up the road. Easy enough to find so we said our goodbyes and I started walking. This is when it got interesting. Something caught my eye and I stopped to go take a look. I turn back around and can't figure out which road my hotel was on. All the streets here look the same and seeing as I can't read Korean, road signs do me no good. I started wandering around which got me even more lost. By this time it is pushing curfew time so I had to find somewhere to go. After a long and drawn out process I eventually found another place and had to get a room there. So yes, at this point I now have two rooms and my backpack and coat are in another room that I can't find. Awesome. I got a few hours of sleep but was up early to go find my original room. I wandered around for another 2 hours or so and FINALLY found the place. I was so relieved but I had to laugh at myself. My original room was about 500 feet from my second room.

All in all a pretty good weekend. I wish I wouldn't have had to get two rooms but I learned a very valuable lesson. When getting a hotel room in Korea, don't go cheap. Pay a little more for a room at a very tall building that is easily identifiable from any part of the city. Till next time...

Recap

Ok so I decided to create this blog as an easy way to keep everyone in my life up to date as to the latest happenings on this year long adventure. I will begin with a quick recap of what has happened so far:

 Leaving was extremely hard. Having to say goodbye to my family was probably the single most difficult thing that I will experience during this little trip. The wife and in-laws threw me a wonderful goodbye lunch that I appreciated so much. This may sound selfish but it felt good knowing that when I leave there will be people that miss me. I am truly blessed with an amazing family. Sitting at the Atlanta airport was rough but the mood was shortly lightened by a chance run in with the father and son team from Gold Rush Alaska who were kind enough to grab a photo with me and Eden. They were pretty solid guys. After a gut wrenching goodbye I boarded the plan to Seattle Washington. Pretty uneventful. Upon arrival in Seattle I sat and waited and waited and waited some more. Finally after about 15 hours we boarded a plane to Korea. The flight there, while also pretty uneventful, was what seemed to be the longest flight of my life. Anyone that has done a trip to Iraq has experienced this mind numbingly long flight time also. So after multiple time changes and crossing the international dateline I arrived in Korea.
There are not many times in my career that the Army has put me up somewhere and I thought to myself, "Wow, this place is really nice," but fortunately this time, after the 2 day journey, I did. I was in a 5 star hotel on post. It gave me a few days to relax and unwind which was greatly appreciated. Then came four days of briefings. Uggh. I am not sure why the Army does non-stop briefings like this because everyone tunes out and doesn’t listen to about half of what is said. Then I was given my orders. I had originally thought I would be staying in southern South Korea and living like the Jefferson’s: in a deluxe apartment in the sky. Who was I fooling? Nope, I got sent to a tiny little place called Camp Stanley in Northern South Korea. The perimeter of this place is about 1.29 miles around. Nice. This also meant I would be living on post in what is a glorified college dorm room. So instead of caviar and Champaign wishes, I have a shower with the water pressure of a stream of urine coming from a 90 year old man. With that being said, I can't change it so I determined to make the best of it.
This brings me to my first day out. Talk about feeling out of place. I could not read a single sign and I stood out like a sore thumb. I was unsure how to use the bus system so I decided to walk to the subway station; after all I was told it was only a couple miles away. Approximately 7 miles later I arrived. Couple miles my ass. I hoped the subway and rode it for about 45 minutes to YongSan, got out, looked around and got right back on. The reason: I just wanted to make sure I could get back from where I was going. After I got back to my original starting point, Uijengbu, I was starving. I had not yet interacted with anyone on the local economy so I knew this was going to be interesting. I stopped at a place to eat and picked the first thing on the wall in my line of sight. The old Korean lady muttered a few words and held up 2 fingers. I just nodded my head and said yes. Apparently I ordered a meal for two. I didn’t want to seem rude so I ate the entire thing. I also didn’t realize that what I ordered was meat parts covered in lava hot barbecue sauce. If you like spicy food this is the place to be. After I finished stuffing myself I took a cab back and slept like a baby.
 I ventured out again the second day with a little more courage to explore. I took a bus to the subway station this time. Much quicker than walking. I rode the subway to a few different places such a Seoul and about three other places that I can’t spell. All very nice places. What I thought Korea to be and what it is are very different. Very metropolitan and very densely populated. At night all the streets are lit up with wonderfully colored flashing signs and kind of looks like Vegas. I am certain there are parts of Korea that are more rural but I haven’t seen it yet. I noticed a trend on my second day out. When I spent the day before exploring downtown Uijengbu, it seemed really seedy and small. That was because I went out the wrong set of doors in the metro station. Turns out that every metro station is like that. Go out one side and it’s seedy. Go out the other side, beautiful. So I explored the nicer part of Uijenbu and wow it was nice. Markets square and shopping as far as your eyes could see. I only got to see a fraction of it but I am looking forward to seeing some more.
So that catches me up to now. There are a lot of little details I skipped because this initial entry would have been entirely too long. I am going to keep this updated so they are a little shorter from now on but with more details. As soon as I figure out how to include photos I will do that also. If you make it this far thanks for reading and until next time...